There are so many ways to take OK Computer, so many ways to interpret the lyrics and melodies, that I couldn’t possibly hope to produce anything here that will cover the way you, yourself, will feel about this album. Everyone I know who has listened to the album in any depth has had a unique and different interpretation of it to my own. All I can do is offer my opinion.
For me, the real beauty of Radiohead does in fact lie in this myriad of possible meanings Thom Yorke is trying to express. I say Yorke deliberately because to me he is the real driving force behind Radiohead, that makes them a band worth listening to. Johnny Greenwood’s music is superb, yes, but there hasn’t been a band I’ve come across in the last decade that says so many things to so many people.
OK Computer is the best example to date of this ’’double life’’ that Radiohead lead. It opens with Airbag, a song I would never have expected from the group having just come from The Bends. The first impression, and one that lingers, is that Yorke is deliriously happy. He’s exhilerated, alive and glad to be sharing this world with the rest of us. Radiohead? The same band who brought us Street Spirit? You might not think so, and at first I thought I’d bought a Celine Dion CD by mistake, but no, this is the change in direction which OK Computer took. The album varies in tone not only from track to track, but within each song itself. You only have to look to the next track, the near-seven minute epic Paranoid Android, to see a ’’song’’ so wild in it’s mood swings that at times you’re not sure whether your CD player is tripping. I hadn’t heard anything on this scale since Bohemian Rhapsody, and in many ways it’s a similar premise - the highs, the lows, and the desperate feelings inbetween. For me, this is the ultimate Radiohead track and it encapsulates the whole feel and purpose of the album. Whether the track order is deliberate or not, I don’t know, but the pendulum-like alternation between ’’happy’’ and ’’sad’’ continues through pretty much the whole of the album.
Subterranean Homesick Alien really lifts me up - it’s one of those songs that irrationally makes you smile, a bit like Boom Boom by the Outhere Brothers - yet straight away, you’re brought back down to sweet Mother Earth with the depressives favourite, Exit Music (For A Film). These two tracks are perhaps the closest the album comes to The Bends, but the distinction remains. Whereas the previous album was mostly rock, OK Computer is rock with a different infusion of genres on each track. There’s jazz, blues, orchestral and indie influences jammed into there, and undoubtedly a few more I don’t know myself.
I’ve heard that kind of comment a million times before, and it always puts me off an album - but rest assured, there are no zany jazz riffs in the middle of really good guitar bits, as the blend is smooth and cool. In my experience the one track that popularly sums up Radiohead is No Surprises. If there’s been a single in the last twenty years - no, ten, to allow for The Smiths ;) - that has something to say to everyone who listens to it, I’d like to know about it. Everyone has that feeling that they’re different, that everyone else are the ones with the problems, and people should be more their way. No Surprises is superficially mocking the contentment of Middle England, and many critics describe it as simple (and maybe it is, and I’ve been listening to it too much ;p), but that story can be told a million different ways to say something about everyone’s life. ’’Such a pretty house and such a pretty garden’’ - how old were you when you realised that (that isn’t what you want, but what you’re going to get)? OK Computer is a schizophrenic album that many times leaves me reaching for the skip button.
Personally I can’t take it all in one dose. Some days, I want the reasonless euphoria of Airbag. Other days, I feel like getting drunk and down to No Surprises. Whichever way I’m feeling, there’s something on here for me. The comparison with The Bends must be made, really, and in my opinion the earlier album edges OK Computer slightly. That said, OK Computer is a must for all Radiohead fans. For those who have not heard any of their other work, I would liken them musically to any of the mid-90s indie bands but with a harder edge, and lyrically to The Beatles and The Smiths.
The words are the real beauty of Radiohead, and what makes them my undoubted top group of the 90s.